The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #79 A Visit From The Secret Service with Guy Branum

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Guy Branum (who was once called “unfunny” by Time Magazine) joins to discuss why we are all failures at Judaism, getting a visit from the Secret Service at the behest of Hillary Clinton, knocking almonds in Yuba City, why heterosexual male energy at award shows needs to stop, and whether or not I should be concerned that I’ve been diagnosed me with jaundice by several people on TikTok. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Follow Guy Branum on Instagram and Twitter See Guy in a city near you! Follow Gianmarco Soresi on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, & YouTube Subscribe to Gianmarco Soresi's email & texting lists Check out Gianmarco Soresi's monthly show in NYC Watch or listen to Gianmarco Soresi's special "Shelf Life" on Amazon & on Spotify Follow Russell Daniels on Twitter & Instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Paige Asachika & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Spencer Sileo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Part of the Authentic Podcast Network Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

uh well i do want to hear more about the the you said 18 yes is when you started balding yes were you mortified i like i was in the closet so i didn't think about physical appearance at all not at all i mean i yes i like not at all um it just to me it was just like a lost cause and better not to think about it and so i like truly had no emotional stake in the game until by the time i was like oh god it would be nice to have hair like the hair was all gone and i think it was many years later before i started seeing like the fat guys who like who are like have sparkly eyes and and look like a three-year-old because they have like a nice head of hair and i was like oh if i still had that hair for when i was young it would be a different game

would you ever get a because i have friends now getting the hair trans they go to turkey to get the hair transplant oh yes like every gay guy i know is going to have questionable like medical procedures done on their hair. I, are they questionable? Is it still kind of a, well, the thing is, is they're spending so much money on the steroids that are taking their hair

that I think they only have money. I mean, like Tijuana medical procedures are like going to Bangkok or Turkey or whatever. You know, I would feel more comfortable having it done in Switzerland or Beverly Hills, but I'm sure that that would be more expensive. There was a comic who got a hair transplant

and I asked him how much was it and he would not tell me. Which made me believe he's embarrassed by how much he was willing to spend on it. Listen, I get it, but it must have been five figures, I think.

Or just, yes. Like, I'm sure it's five figures. Or you see the guys who just have a great rug. And sometimes I'm like, good for them with their great rug. The thing is, I just have already established a brand. Of course. In this situation. Like, you know, you can only pivot so much and like he went from sort of deforestation to

you know rich reforestation you you can't go from like desert to the amazon without people being like what's going on i suppose i could turn it into a story of empowerment i really think i just need to focus on um having the moles on my head removed. Is that something you're planning on? I nick them constantly when shaving my head. Sure. And so I'm just like, this isn't going to end well. And so I think I should have them taken care of.

And they're just like, truly, when I'm on camera, they are sort of like a lot. My deepest hope is that my career in entertainment will lead to like a dermatologist being at home and like watching like some sort of hulu program and then be like uh-oh that one that one on the left he needs to worry about and then will send me a letter like that would that's how you want that i listened i recently had some people diagnose me with um uh what's they said i was getting too yellow on screen oh they thought i had jaundice jaundice and it was just my ring light i have a shitty ring light that kind of makes me yellow but i got this long email like hey big fan but i'm very concerned about your liver yeah that would be what would like what would you a thin person have to be doing to damage your liver

that hard i don't know yeah but but yeah i have a little i have a mole here that i've always thought about you know it would be something that i i'd be out of work for two i'd have to hide my face but how how hard is it to take off a mole what stopped you from taking it off now i mean the one time i went to a dermatologist to be like to get naked and have him look at all of them he was like they're fine and the one that wasn't fine or there was one that was like annoying for some reason and he took it off and then he biopsied it i don't know why i didn't consider doing the ones on my head but i i do just sort of like want to do the ones on my head

yeah um well i might as well uh welcome to the downside my name is jim marcus uh i'm here with guy branham branham branham great uh and you are jewish that's not a very jewish name but you are my father is a gentile yes same same with me my my jewish mom is uh in the other room and by room i mean the room's separated by a curtain we're at a third wheel podcast studios i was hoping you were one of those real italian jews you know i was hoping that there was some sort of like well no like uh we've just uh been in uh moderna wait modena modena moderna is a maker of vaccine sure we've just been in Modena Since the

16th century We're just like You know Hanging around Yeah I wanted one of those stories You want I wanted a call me by your name

A call me by your name Yeah yeah No I'm just Just It's just a little bit Italian My dad's a little bit Italian My mom's A big old Jew

So Thank you for being here On the downside I've wanted to have you for a while normally we have theme music but it costs extra so no theme music today can I make one more joke? I'm tagging this a little late

I mean like you know if my last name isn't Jewish enough the jurist doctor that comes after it let's certainly hope is Jewing up the name. Let's let that be nice.

Yeah. Are you seeing anyone now? Oh, no. No, no, no. I said jurist doctor. Oh, jurist doctor. I thought you were going to date one. No, I went to law school.

Oh, I see. Yes. So your title is? Yes, I'm a JD. If I were to put that on my name and sign it, it was not a very good joke. No, I think it probably was. It's just a very specific audience who graduated as doctors. I'm not in a relationship.

And the only relationship I've ever had was with a man who is truly professionally a worthless layabout. And so I don't think I will be power coupling anytime soon. Do you think it would be a nice Jewish boy, though, if it happened? The only relationship I have been in was with a Jew. Not a nice one. But it was nice to have somebody who understood complaining and being complained to. It was nice to have somebody who understood that like, that my love language is gentle arguments. Absolutely.

I've said it before. And I think that's why I did this podcast theme was I remember, I just remember once going on a date. I very briefly went through, like, a real OkCupid type phase. And there was just a woman who said, like, you sure do complain a lot. And I was like, oh, yeah. I sure do. yeah that's your way of communicating with the world right you can have a good time and complain about this yes it's it's truly wonderful it's the best thing to do um are you you're in a relationship right i am in a

relationship with with a with a very jewish woman do you know tova yes Tova Silberman? Yes, I know Tova. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Where do you know Tova from? We were backstage at a show that she was organizing, and Tova, like, did the real work of downloading so much of who she was to me over the course of, let's say, 15 minutes. Like, you know, we went to the Orthodox upbringing. Like, it was the Biscuit Festival. It was this. Yeah, yeah. I did not know her i wasn't doing stand-up at that time but she went through a producer phase yes but truly one of the things i'm really looking for in a person is that they'll just give me all of the information i'm going to

need up front and then i can just start with the questions uh-huh um yeah like that's how I like to know a person. I'm meeting her, her family for the first time in like two weeks. And it's like, we're doing the Shabbat dinner. We're doing all the Jew stuff. And I didn't grow up with a lot of that stuff. So it's been, it's been interesting because I, I've always felt like I'm Jewish emotionally, but that's it. And then now as I get older it's like all right let's see can i go through this without rolling my eyes and i'm doing my best for her well it's like i grew up

in a very un-jewish place the only jews that i knew were my mom and her relatives and so like so much of mine is just sort of like book learning Judaism. And I have recently met some observant gay boys. And that is such a fascinating world to sort of like encounter and who have sort of like challenged my presumption about what level of participation or Judaism was appropriate in my life. Like two weeks ago, Natasha Leggera was like, are you coming to Purim? of participation or Judaism was appropriate in my life. Like two weeks ago, Natasha Leggera was like, are you coming to Purim? And then this gay boy was like, I'm going to Purim at IKAR tonight.

And then I ended up going to a Purim carnival, which let's be fair, is like, that's no fasting. Like it really is the most fun way of approaching it. But it was just sort of like, okay, guy, maybe there's more space for this in your life. Well, I can't even imagine. I think I told it once on the store,

on the podcast where when I did birthright a long time ago, when Israel was still cool and fun for everyone, I, the, we had the, the, the rabbi, the Orthodox, he was Hasidic rabbi.

And he, he said, we're going to play a game. I call stump the rabbi where you can ask me anything you want about Judaism. And I immediately was like, how do you guys feel about homosexuality? And he told this incredible political move where he was like, oh, if someone came to me and said they were gay, I'd give them a hug because the world is hard. And I was like, follow-up question what the fuck you fall and then people started crying and yelling and it's like you just oh it was amazing it was

it went from the fun thing to people just collapsing and one of those things where you dig a little deeper and you're like oh there are some homophobes here on the trip too and i just can't imagine not i'm not gay and that's enough to make me go like fuck this whole thing but let alone being i mean not welcome in certain most of it my attitude towards it has always been like i just right off the bat can't do the slate of things so i will just be as cafeteria as i like um you know it's like i I'm going to fail at one of the 613. So like, I will only pick the ones that I enjoy.

And then I was talking to this guy, Jason, who I'm friends with. And he, like, he went to a yeshiva in Israel and he very much was like, we are all failures at Judaism. And like,

no one is doing everything that they are supposed to do and it was like what a beautiful way of looking at that but also i don't know if that's right i yeah except in in that mind it's like i don't like that the idea well oh you're gay well that's one of your failings and i don't and i sometimes eat bacon. It's like, well, no, one of those shouldn't be both, frankly. Both, frankly. So, yes. So, we'll see. My priority, I try to make Tova feel, because it's very important to her.

She has her own feelings. What if your little weakness is just murder? Like, what if your little weakness was just, you have some bacon, I murder on occasion. I could see a Jewish person be like, oh, you're gay? gay well let me tell you something about me we both fuck up sometimes you're telling me about we're both penetrating guys sometimes now and then uh yeah i just want to go i it's one of those things i started as an actor so like i i know how to try to make myself experience something sincerely said to say a prayer and try to feel it i remember when i went on birthright uh i i and i consider myself kind of not wanting to be an atheist deep down and i remember going

to the western wall and putting my hand on the thing and just trying to be there be present but it's gotten tougher and then i became a comedian and now i roll my eyes at everything so your mom lives here how much did you have any growing up in los angeles did i have any what growing up in no no no uh i grew up in potomac maryland a lot of jews yeah uh so i went to a lot of bar mitzvahs bat mitzvahs um and now she moved here about three years ago, I'd say. But, I mean, Los Angeles is such a rich heartland for actors being religious,

and truly, what could be worse than, you know, a good, like, mosaic or, like, we have all of these wonderful, nothing but hot actor churches, and they're the best. I don't know. I don't know what your your beliefs are but i would struggle i struggle with anyone talking about astrology i struggle with anyone talking about crystals because i think truly my truth is i think you this is all complete

nonsense yes and we're talking about nothing. And there isn't, I struggle. Again, when I go back to the dating, some of these dating apps, it's part of the profile no matter what you do. And I hate it and I hate it. I don't believe in any of it, but I love a little witchcraft. Like I just love it as something to sort of like, way i came to it was i was like when i go on diets that have some small amount of witchcraft like you know you drink a potion in the morning and then like beyond just sort of like eat less and exercise i i adhered to it more and i was like that's fun wait tell me about this potion like what, what was in the potion? Okay, so when I was on the fat flush by Dr. Anne Louise Gittleman,

you had to wake up every morning and you had to put flax seeds in water, stir it up, and then drink it. And then hot water with lemon juice every morning. And that was supposed to be cleaning out my liver. And I don't know if it did anything. And it all tasted disgusting. But it was like, I am doing the magic. And so this is all happening.

And so I, there are, there are times like I don't care about astrology, but I did do a tarot reading three weeks ago to explain to me how I should be moving forward in the world. Now, why? Um,

because I was, people are always like, trust your gut. My gut, like, my gut only tells me to fear things. You know, it's like my gut is. The Jewish part of you. Yes. It is full of uncertainty.

And there, I was just like, I want to clarify how I'm thinking about something. I just sort of want to, yeah, clarify how I'm thinking about something. I just sort of want to, yeah, clarify how I'm thinking about something. And so I do like, you know, just sort of like opening myself up to receive messages. And my friend, Ethan Hardy, who's a comic in New York, I don't know if you know him, he was doing tarot readings. And so I had him do a tarot reading for me. And it was just like seeing what my reactions were to what was being presented to me was like really valuable. And what did you walk away with?

my specific questions were like, I'm trying to build an hour. What should I be doing? And it was like, you know, you should like, It was like, you have an hour on tarot readings now. No, it was like, be alone more. Like when in looking for people to sort of like go to during this time, go to people who are very open about their emotions and things like that, that feel like sort of like vague encomia, but you know,

like having something to, to hook yourself to, to sort of find an instinct that is like, I should be spending more time with Amy Miller. I knew that I should be spending more time with amy miller before um the tarot reading but the tarot reading was just something that was like made me think that again i because there's the cynical part of me goes like oh well you just needed to sit down and talk to a friend in a meaningful way but that's what i did i know but why do we have to call it this because because does he believe that the cards are are magic um it was about us taking roles it was about him like i mean it was

essentially about me letting him be the dom which you know i don't do in a lot of conversations it was also about us saying well this whole conversation is gonna be about me and what's going on with me which are things that you don't normally do and i think that's one of the things is my dad was a big fan of like well you don't need blah blah you could just blah blah blah and the thing is but will you yeah and i think that you know something like tarot is setting aside time to think about a specific set of things and if you do it without those structures, I mean, we're going back to Judaism here.

Judaism is all about putting meaningless rituals around, you know, thinking about the way you approach the world. And it's kind of nice in that way. It is nice in that way. But then, like Judaism or any religion, those get used to then prop up people who then go to – then all of a sudden you got Ronald Reagan making foreign policy decisions based on his wife's – You're talking about the terror wars. Yeah.

No. But like it's like – it's one of these things where I'm like, sure, it's fun as long as we all understand that we're experiencing ritual. But then you're mingling with people who believe. And that's where I struggle with it because I go like, okay, guys, we're having fun or we're like having an experience. And then other people, though, they don't think about it the way you are. That's true. But I also think that there is something valuable about um leaving space for what you don't understand and there are definitely people who take that too far i mean my mom loves a

good conspiracy theory my mom loves believing that she is smarter than the experts about something because she sort of heard something on the radio. And it is insufferable to me because, you know, I like a nice citation. Like at the end of the day, you know, I want the experts to be in charge. But I think that there is something, like to me, a tarot reading is like a massage or going to, okay, well, I go to a place on Beverly.

We're just going to go deeper into cult things. By the we end this we're going into the scientology center i mean this i go to a place that stretches me okay it's like what what los angeles lady bullshit also your mom and i should do it together more frequently um but like pilates teacher oh really yeah but like i mean i don't need to pay somebody to help me stretch i could just stretch on my own but also will i stretch on my own if i don't make an appointment and have like a nice person do it with me which makes it so much better how does it work are you like on a is it like a massage table type thing are you standing and she just goes touch your toes no it like you get on a massage table and then a guy sort of lifts your leg up and pushes it further than you would on your own. It sounds heavenly. It is.

We all need a good... Do you do massages too? Of course. I had a really good massage. By Tova, we went to a spa and I got a massage. I got stoned before. Oh, hot stones are so nice. Why is that so nice?

Oh, you said you got stoned before. You meant to not wear it. No, and stoned. I got stoned and we did the hot stones are so nice why is that so nice oh you said you had stone before stone no no and stones okay i got stoned and we did the hot stones though at one point i got two stoned and at one point i was on my back i've had surgery once and i suddenly had the idea of of like oh my god this is me going into surgery and that kind of ruined the massage for me um okay well i did want to bring up because i just the thing i wanted to complain about i just got back from a week in vegas okay i was a week in vegas i was it was the comedy seller it was a they book you for a week yeah you do two spots a night and uh i'd been to vegas once before like

just for a gig an acting gig a long long time. And it was for one night, and it was perfect because I was getting paid a shitload of money. They took care of me. This was like, Vegas is not for me, not for people like me. It feels like being caught in a scam. Everything's a scam. And the same way you go to a movie theater, the popcorn's a little too expensive.

It's $6.50 for a small. This was like, the popcorn's $50, and they're like, fuck you, what are you and you're like nothing i guess have you ever been to an all-inclusive resort in mexico no that does sound nice or is it a scam no it's all scam it's all scam like there's they're always trying to upcharge you and they are always trying to deny you services and it is a nightmare at every turn i think think, well, first of all, Las Vegas you should go to for 36 hours or less. You should never be there for more than 36 hours. And I understand you were there for work,

but I guess it would be hard to do a week in Vegas and try to treat Vegas like it was Bloomington, Indiana. It's hard. You have to just go outside of, I guess, the strip. But the club is in the hotel, so you feel like the hotel, the Wi-Fi costs money. The cafeteria that you get to use, I mean, I can't imagine prisons are worse than this cafeteria. Yes.

And then Tova joined me about halfway through, and so we were trying to like make a vacation out of it, do some shows. At any point in time, did you say to yourself, well, if I ever meet for a writing job on Hacks, I have so much to talk about. Yes. Yes, exactly. That's what I say. Listen, I spent a week here. I'm an expert. No one's been in Vegas for as long as I have in the history of Vegas.

And we went to go see some shows. And the one show that really just stuck with me of it was just everything was so wrong we saw david copperfield's show at it was a matinee and david copperfield it's one of those things all the pictures outside and i like magic yeah i think i think i like magic more than i do and all the pictures of him outside are like him like kind of in his prime and then you see him like oh you aged 20 years from the time we were waiting in line to see you and and he's very rich so i feel like we can i can take some he has that island he has he has islands he owns half of vegas at this point yes a couple of questions did it at any point in

time were you like i wish there were more libertarianism in this magic? Because if so, there's always Penn and Teller. I would have liked to see Penn and Teller. It actually was at the hotel I was staying at, but they were like off for the week. Yeah. I find Penn's commentary on stand-up comedy to be some of the most insufferable writing in the entire world. He writes about, I don't know if you're friends with Penn. I am not. But he'll talk, he'd be like, stand-up comedy is like jazz and i'm like great take two art forms you're not

involved with compare them to each other and and and drone about he just loves talking about stand-up comedy in a way that i would never presume to talk about magic right with this level of like it's like uh magic it's like it's like house dance it's like you don't know what's coming next but i do find their shtick uh entertaining yes i mean i love a vegas show because it's you know 85 minutes and then you don't have to worry about parking afterwards or like getting out of i hate live music but like, you know, fucking 75 minutes of Ricky Martin. And then you walk out and you're just in the casino and like there are drinks readily available.

It's so much fun. I, yeah, I'm also not a live music fan. It's a struggle for me. It's gotta be very theatrical for me to be on board. I need some dances or some terrible scripts. Yes, I mean, the thing is- A terrible libretto in the Spice Girls concert. Good, like good showmanship, I appreciate.

It is the process of getting there. What I'm supposed to be doing while I'm there, we're supposed to be gently swaying and bopping around, but not really dancing. I don't know. And then when you leave, it's like, oh, this is annoying. Everyone's trying to leave at the same time. Nightmare. I remember I saw, I think Green Day when I was young,

like my dad took me, and I remember saying to him, if everyone just sat down, we could all be sitting down. But the front row would stand, and then everyone was standing. And I still feel that way to this day. I say, can we all just sit down and enjoy this? Do we all have to be uncomfortable?

And that's how I feel about all concerts. But that's what a Vegas show is, is just like a bunch of people who want to be sitting down. Yes. People were sitting at their show for sure. So David Copperfield, he's also, he's old,

he's like stiff in the upper body. So his arms are kind of moving like this, but he's just like very stiff in the shoulders. And he's phoning it into a degree that's hard to, like he's phoning it into a degree that's that's hard to like there's phoning it in where you're not fully trying but this is coupled with what the premise of this show is and like most magic shows it's very self-aggrandizing yes fine but it's about uh uh it's like he he talks about his dad who died and how he, uh, lost a letter from his father.

The final letter, his father wrote him. So, and I assume his dad's dead. He's an old man. So I assume we're talking about a real human being that's died and his actual father. So he finds an alien. That's this incredible piece of animatronic machinery that he spends the whole show talking to and the alien essentially like reunites him with his father and he ultimately like gets the letter back and gets to read it so the stakes are super high and he's phoning it in all the way so at some

point the alien dies and he's doing everything in his time. He goes, oh, no, the alien's dead. We'll have to go back in time to save him and bring my father's letter back to the present world. Like that's the level everything's at. And he goes back in time. He gets this, oh, my God, the letter from my father. I can finally know what my father's last words to me were. And it's that

level for the whole show and then he reads this letter and i talk about my dad a lot on stage yeah and so i i i think about and tova was was one who kind of realized this that you know he wrote this letter to himself yes as his father and the letter is basically like uh dear david i know we haven't spent much of the last many years together because you've been so busy touring on the road and as he's reading this photos of him with the dalai lama and with the head of every country but then i realized you touring was living my dream as well and i'm so proud of you and i love you so much and actually you being away was was the greatest thing that could have happened and it's the biggest like like uh don't worry everything you ever did in life was correct and you actually your dad was proud of you and so

to see this man he i think he's 71 or late 60s. Read an imaginary letter from his dead father who he has been portraying on screen and saying how great you are. While reading in a monotone, while people walk around with signs that say turn off your cell phone and doing a magic trick that involves your email, And doing a magic trick that involved your email, which very clearly was just data collection for David Copperfield to continue making millions upon millions. You're in this moment where you're like, this is horrible. We saw three magic tricks of big things appearing. But why is he doing it? Why? He's so rich.

This is so awful. he's not having fun no one in the audience is emotionally attached to this it's your dad who's dead which i'm all about fucking shitting all over just your since my mom's in the room just your dad shitting all over all your parents your heritage i don't give a fuck but it felt so gross it felt so like why i mean that sounds like a magical evening to me that sounds like just an amazing like an amazing confluence of commerce and art into something that's like what's going on here why bring your dad into it if you're going to like say oh i'll hate what i do but i'll make so much money because i do 400 of them a year like it's just it's insane i don't understand these business models but i love them no one could have cried no one could have been emotional at it like it's part you should just shut up and say you said

i'm david you can tell your friends you saw me good night everyone and it would have been the same experience and it was like a mix of that. I went to only because someone invited me. It was like someone who works with an NFT person and it was like an NFT party. And I mean, the security around this thing, this guy must be a millionaire just drawing pictures. It was just like witnessing kind of the peak of capitalism we're seeing david copperfield who's insanely wealthy yeah i'm seeing this nft the kind of celebrity who's like you know 16 and has more money than god and it's for now for now and it's all feels so hollow and all it doesn't warm my heart it doesn't move me and it's like oh this isn't the peak that's interesting like i hadn't thought about it that way but las vegas really is a space for art that is in no way moving um i because like i love a good cirque du soleil of course and that is just like all spectacle um and also just sort of the erotic knowledge that there are 50 french canadian

like muscly acrobats somewhere in the building afterwards and like that could be exciting uh and then like uh or like rudner just run in the same hour from 1988 who's rudner i don't know rita rudner oh rita rudner yes remind me it's rita rud Rita Rudner, she's one of my favorite comedians. But my joke is always that she wrote A Solid Hour in 1988. She's still doing it. She was at the New York New York Forever. But she's just one of those people who's been there. When I was starting out in comedy 15 years ago or whatever, my parents, we went to Las Vegas.

And they were like, we have tickets to go see Rita Rudner. And it was fucking amazing. Can I tell you my favorite Rita Rudner joke please um what kind of what kind of card you have here's the difference between men and women here's the difference between uh men and women and then I to you say what kind of car do you have and I say uh I have a Jaguar and then I say I have a white car I have a white car and it really is pronoun car. And it really is pronouncing the H in white that is the core of what Rita Rudner is as a standup comedian. And I love that joke.

And she's been doing like the same. It's mean to say that she's been doing the same hour for the past 30 years, but she's been doing the same hour for the past 30 years. I don't know if it's, but some people that's their, that's what they do. I spoke with Jay Leno at leno at flappers once yeah

and i asked i said why haven't you recorded an hour and released it and and he said and i don't think this out today he's like are you crazy i if i can uh wait four years tour portland again and it's a new hour to them that's really and and i thought that's not who I am, at least now. Yes. But I think like, God, how happy would I be if I never had to – I have an hour. And if I just did that and never had to worry about bombing or working something out again, I'd probably have time to read books again and watch TV shows. Pay attention to those cars. But I'd go nuts.

Yeah. TV shows. Pay attention to those cars. But I go nuts. Yeah. It is like I don't generate material quickly enough, but I also do a bunch of different things. And I like I think it does. It depends on what you want.

And like for some people, they like they just want the life, you know, they want to be a comedian. Yeah. You know, being a comedian is really fun. But that's like what Vegas is. That's what that magic show is. David Copperfield, whatever the show that we saw, half the show was just making sure none of us filmed the fucking show. We were like, we got it.

One of the things, take our phones instead of telling us 20 times throughout the evening to stop. And it's because it's like, hey, we're going to do this hour for 10 years. To stop. And it's because it's like, hey, we're going to do this hour for 10 years. Well, like, do you ever have an awareness of just like, well, this is not the best show that I am going to do this week? You know, of like when you're at a club doing a week of shows and you always go into it wanting every show to be the best. But there are times when you're just aware of like, well, this is not going to be the best one. Yeah.

And it's a weird feeling because you have to be able to have that feeling to be a professional at this. But then also part of you should always be trying to find this audience where they are and bring them to the best place they can go to. You know? I feel like I'm definitely more – I never feel good unless i'm working at least something out a little bit new yeah if if you were to ask me like how often i'm trying to just do the best set i possibly could it's pretty small it's pretty small and maybe it's maybe it's a not a good way to go about it but like i i don't feel content well it's one of it's not a good way to go about it. But, like, I don't feel content. Well, it's also one of the things that Los Angeles truly destroys comedians with. Because there's the way that, you know, you so frequently have to be on best behavior here.

Uh-huh. Especially for, like, your first couple of years in town. And then you get these people, you know, like, who just forget how to write a new joke or just sort of are because like in new york you guys have to do hours on a regular basis and like for so much of my time in la it was just like you're anyone's just doing seven minutes for their first you know yeah 10 years here you started stand-up in new york no i started stand-up in New York? No, I started stand-up in San Francisco, California. Okay, cool. And then I moved here

two and a half, three years in because I had a job. Not because I believed in myself, let's be very clear. I can't imagine every time I come to LA, I walk away going, I could never imagine being here permanently for stand-up. I think I would go nuts unless I was a huge celebrity and could get on at one of the three big whatevers every night.

Because there's just not a lot. Well, and I do hate how much both times I have lived in New York for a job, I became a better comedian. I don't like that that's true. Yeah. Which jobs were the New York jobs? I don't like that that's true. Yeah. Which jobs were the New York jobs?

One season of Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and one season of Billy on the Street. I worked on a bunch of seasons of Billy on the Street, but there was only one year. A couple of times I came out for a couple of weeks, but there was one year when I was just there for the whole year. Did you walk around during the shooting of Billy on the Street? No, never. It seems fair. I saw it once. And I've done like Man on the Street stuff. And it was incredible because it was like a snake.

I mean, it really was the snake of Billy and then a whole crew. And whenever he had an interaction, they would fall off to get a release sign. Yes. No, the one time I saw them like actually shooting, I was just having lunch, and Doug, his producer, was like, guy! And then kept running, and I had to, like, come out. Like, he yelled at me through the window, and I had to, like, come out and run after them to be able to say hello. that I approaching strangers I've had tried a couple man on the street you know back in the day it's not in me it's not in me to go to a stranger I can do it I do enjoy it sometimes but like going up to strangers I'm overcome by a they don't want to be bothered I remember barking for some shows which people listening is asking the random crowds come see the comedy show and there are some people who can do it

hey hey look at you look at you look at you I can't do it I go like I know they hate this I mean it's the same reason I can't I don't ask strangers out on dates I just struggle with that have you done the man on the street stuff I mean I enjoy man on the street stuff

I love crowd work you know I like it crowd work I Yeah. You know, I like it. Crowd work, I'm fine with that because we've accepted we're here. Yes. But otherwise, I'm just like, ugh. It's like when someone approaches me, there's nothing I hate more than people go, hey, how are you? And I don't remember people's faces or names. So I'm always like, hi.

And then they're like, would you sign this? And I'm like, fuck, you tricked me. Both at parties and at bars, will very aggressively mingle and will just walk up to a group of people who are having a conversation and integrate myself into the conversation. And like, sometimes it goes really wrong, but also sometimes it goes really right.

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then sit back and let your matches start the chat download bumble and try it for yourself um one thing i well first you you grew up in what is it it's yuma yuba city yuba city yes and how far away is that from la uh it is seven hours north of here and it's a different world it's a different world it is the prune capital of the world it produces um my home county produces more peaches than the states of georgia and south carolina combined now peaches i like prunes are fine prunes should be much more respected than they are they're delicious uh peaches are great i grew up on an almond farm and there are also a lot of uh walnut farms around there now prunes this is the purple yes it's a plum so i like plums but prunes is the same thing it's the same thing and we don't respect them for fucked up reasons you like you don't like prunes

because people made jokes about them in like the 70s and 80s on sitcoms that you watched in the 90s but why did they make those jokes because in the 1930s and 40s they were one of the few like accessible fruits and they were something like that could be transported places and so like old people like they were associated with old people the way the grapefruits were because those were the fruits that they had access to in the 1940s. When it turns out it's a fucking dried plum and it's delicious. Much better than a fucking crazing. Much better than a fucking raisin.

Listen, I'm not going to defend raisins. Okay. I'll defend grapes though. But prunes is a dried plum. It's a dried plum. It's a specific kind of plum that's, I mean, fresh they are. Fucking delicious. There's like cute little taut, firm plum. Yes, I like that.

I do like a good plum. Yes. But the dried, I'm not a fan of the dried. And as a dish, I think the reason it's not an apple is it's just too small. It's too small. It's too wet. I mean, it's very concentrated. I mean, it is sort of like jammy, but I think we should be excited about that.

Do you have, I mean, you, I mean, let's be honest, you're from the East Coast. You have no sophisticated opinions about figs. Where, I mean, this is fucking fig country out here. There are, Los Angeles is so full of fig trees that are not being properly taken care of. If I become Betty White famous, the way that Betty White was like, hey, love animals, and protected the L.A. Zoo, I'm just going to go for the underloved fig trees of Los Angeles. Have you watered a fig tree today? I'm having trouble even placing what a fig looks like not in a Newton. I mean, it kind of looks like a prune prune like a little like like a little bag of

delicious again it's these small ones i need something hefty i need something big it's like a kiwi it's like i like a kiwi but every time i get a kiwi i i never i never cut into it john let me tell you a horrible story in the 1970s music man style someone came through my part of California telling the story of kiwis. Like, plant kiwis, son. You'll make millions. And then a bunch of people in the town north of ours planted kiwis. And then no one wanted to buy them. And it meant that there were like two months out of the year when everyone just had fucking kiwis everywhere.

And periodically somebody out of nowhere would be like, you want some kiwi juice it's like no i would drink kiwi juice though for me it's just the effort of the spoon and then you leave some in there i i love a kiwi it's got a little sour tartness to it it does this sounds like a did you like living at this no no it's a horrible place horrible place i mean far from culture everyone had a job that gave people food or shelter. Like, you know, none of the, and now from a distance living in like a ridiculous city, I'm like, what dignity to those people? But those people in practice are undereducated and mean. Where did you get your culture from growing up then?

Because you're a man of the culture that's very kind of you my mom brought bought me a lot of books and did a lot of explaining to me that we were different because we were jews and that's why it matters it matters a lot to me some people are like you did not grow up with that very much and it is like only your mom why do you care about it and it was like this is something that mattered a lot to her and my grandma and so um it matters to me and was your dad working in the fields was he squeezing those kiwis like we gotta sell it somehow he was a construction worker for most of the year but then come like august no when did we start knocking the almonds august is walnuts but i think it was even after that that because uh almonds blossom very early and they come ripe very late and then

we would knock the all of them were from from arkansas and they all said almonds so in when you say knocking the almonds i like that is how they said it we would like knock that as a family my dad's parents and all of us would go out and we would like the men would hit the trees with mallets and the women would hit them with these like long poles and then the children would pick them up and put them in buckets and then i would get one present every year with the money that we um this was like a like a ritual thing like it was like a fun like where people drink in and go like get the balance no there was there was no sort of like charming mediterranean approach to this is a lovely thing like it was very get this done as quickly as

possible so that we can make this money and then dad can go back to finishing concrete and the women had sticks yes flailing poles and were they effective or was it just like get the mallet back here no no it's very good you have to you have to work the same of them so the men hit the like big parts of the tree and it vibrates but it truly takes the women sort of like going through all of the leafy parts to get them to fall down that's also my ability to distinguish this is i was a like four year old i think we i was 11 when we stopped doing it so i just figured it must work i was not thinking critically at that point in time i if that was an activity somewhere i would do it for a day that sounds fun maybe it's hard after

three hits i got out of this sucks i'm hitting a tree well it's like apple picking you know when we convinced when we convinced convinced bougie people that it was a fun activity to go do agricultural labor. I always told my girlfriend, I said, I want to go apple picking, but too many comedians have done a bit on it. So what's the point? One of the most fun things is, do you know what Cafe Gratitude is here? No, I don't think so. It's a wonderful vegan restaurant that is run by a cult. And when people would show up from New York and and think that they had they were like i got this bit like one time emily heller there was like a

very good comic who came from new york and emily heller saw him doing a bit about cafe gratitude and she was like we have to tell him like we have to tell him you can't just everyone's done yes everyone's done that bit we don't need your bits your bits. It's very hard to tell that to a comic. I recently had a joke. It was just like a one-liner in a chunk, but it started the chunk. And it was a bit that Louis C.K. had done like 20 years ago. Mine was, my girlfriend and I have been dating for about a year, so we're almost done. And he did, I've been married for 10 years, so we're almost done.

Yeah. And who knows if I unconsciously took it. But that comic who told me it, I hated him in that moment. Because I had a joke that was working like 100% of the time, any kind of audience. And he took it from me. No, it's such a terrible feeling. But the person is also doing you a favor. I know. I know.

You can write more jokes. And the last thing you want is for anyone to think that you stole from somebody in that way. But these days, I got to tell you, I think we will have to adjust the way we think about. Because everyone's telling every joke online these days, that there's a degree of like, well, every joke is kind of going to be told, at least these like one-liner quippy things, like there's going to be versions everywhere. Well, the thing is, is like, for a week after a pop culture thing happens, everybody's going to make the same joke. And people who get too full of themselves About this person stole my joke It's like Babydoll

It's not that original I had someone accuse me Of stealing They accused me of stealing a joke And then they posted the Twitter With his joke earlier than mine And then someone showed Someone else who had done it three years earlier And the guy just deleted it all yeah but it was like yeah of course

we should be very hesitant you really got to have a track if someone steals a chunk yeah sure but these one-liners i just think more and more i remember when i made sketch comedy sometimes people like you stole this from but i'm like i don't know what that is right youtube is huge yeah any premise that's really clean you're like someone's probably done it i mean that's fair i mean if something is too easy and there's a reason that i have to pull it out i'm going to be annoyed by it but it's also like well my my attitude is always well i can write more jokes, you know? Sure. But there are also just sort of like, as you're saying, premises and ideas that are going to be universal enough that if they are providing a foundation for you doing something more original, may just have to stay there. Sure. But also, I think I remember there was some physicist back when I was like into my my like philosophy reading about it

where there was he was a philosopher physicist he kind of quit being a physicist he discovered something in physics and like some team in japan discovered it like a day before him and it's one of those things where it's not like oh that's the easy like if we were to map it completely to comedy it doesn't mean that the joke or the discovery was easy. It's just that they found it first. Yeah. And so it didn't matter that he found it. And for him, that made him become a full-time fiction writer.

Like that's how jarring it was. Yeah. And in a way, it's like, well, that happens with art and with comedy. You just have to kind of deal with it and move on. Yeah. art and with comedy then you just have to kind of deal with it and move on yeah but i do think we'll get to a point where there's going to be so many jokes out in the ether written down on twitter that any kind of clever one-liner it's kind of going to have been done what is tiktok if not infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters absolutely absolutely except infinite monkeys

would probably be a little less hack but that's i, I'm all about, are you on TikTok? Like, I have TikTok, so I can watch hot guys not wearing shirts lip sync to people saying things. I do not post anything of my own on TikTok. I love at least reading some places where some people are like discovering their sexuality based on TikTok's algorithm is so good. Wonderful. That then they go like huh interesting a lot of gay things oh it's kind of nice that tiktok can discover that for you it's true and that the chinese government has an authoritative list of everyone who's gay um the the the one story because

you know of course i did my my research i went through your Wikipedia. Your personal bio, it just says, guy is gay. Uh-huh. And that's the perfect summation. It's truly all you need to know. I was very curious about, in college, this paper thing. I'm sure you've talked about it ad nauseum. Some, yes. But it's, can you tell what happened?

Yes. But it's, can you tell what happened? So, my last year of college, I wrote a column, a humor column for the campus paper. And I had forgotten about my deadline. And I was getting home about an hour and a half before I needed to send it. Like, it was like 12.30 or 1. And I had to send it in by like 2 or 2.30. send it like it was like 12 30 or one and i had to send it in by like 2 or 2 30 and i just remembered that it was the week of the big game between berkeley and stanford i went to berkeley and that was the first year that chelsea clinton was at stanford and they had like yelled at a stanford

columnist for addressing the fact that she was there and i wrote a column that was like stanford's full of rich fancy people we should tear apart that school like um chelsea clinton has so much privilege blah blah and then it like they did a little a little story about it in the san francisco chronicle as part of the like here's the big game rivalry and then the ap picked up the story and it turned the line, Chelsea Clinton represents the Stanford ethos of establishment worship, which must be subverted and destroyed into Chelsea Clinton dot, dot, dot must be destroyed.

And then 24 hours later, there were secret service agents at my home because, um, then Mrs. Now secretary Clinton had seen the AP article and was in San Jose. And so she sent some Secret Service agents to come to my home to determine if I was a credible threat to the life of Chelsea Clinton. How scared were you? I was upset. Like, I was just sort of like, I would say I was like confused.

Like I was supposed to be turning in a draft of a paper and I was like, what's like the most disturbing thing was that Berkeley called me. Like the extent to which UC Berkeley, where did you go to college? Did you go to college? Yeah. University of Miami. Okay. So like, is that a state school or a private school?

It's a private school. Okay. So, like, is that a state school or a private school? It's a private school. Okay. So, like, a gigantic state school doesn't contact you. Like, if you want something out of it, you have to go get something from it. It will at most, like, send you a letter or something. But the fact that, like, the registrar's office called me, I was like, what the fuck is going on? And they were like, some secret service is coming to your apartment. And I was just, like, I was just like i was just like upset because i

needed to turn in this paper and then i was just like so cooperative and i got so much more mad at myself later because i later was like oh this was attempting to chill speech that was obviously not a threat in any way yeah um i should have been i should have pushed back more in some sort of um you know knowing my rights sort of sense but at that point in time i had not gone to law school so i did not know my rights and i just wanted to cooperate and finish my paper on uh it was my thesis on the british royal family for the history department how many security agents it was two they did look it was the fucking 90s like we were such a simple people but the most classic good cop bad cop of one of them only spoke the two times i resisted in some

way two times i said i don't know about that and they were like we could go get a warrant and i should have said go get a warrant um but that was the only times that he talked were um to do that and the other one was like trying to soften me up and say like, this is not a big deal. We're just looking to see if you have any photos of Chelsea with red X's on them. I remember these specific lines because they were things that were quoted in the news stories about it. Because after that happened, my campus paper did a story about it. happened my campus paper did a story about it and then the the secret service coming became a much bigger news story than um uh like the the article itself um the moscow times called me a bad boy invectivator and time magazine called me unfunny time magazine yeah i would lead with that with with press stuff yeah i mean to be called unfunny

by time magazine the leading institution of humor um was there a thing that that and you had called bill clinton at a different time predator in chief oh yes i did which we called him sexual predator sexual predator in chief yes which is this uh at a time when i don't know how people Yes. Yes. people were confused about why I was criticizing Bill Clinton because we were all supposed to love Bill Clinton uh-huh and you know it's like he was a nice liberal and he appointed appointed like uh Ruth Bader Ginsburg and that stuff great at sex and and also great at sex uh and then also you know um banned gay marriage you know like he was a complex human being and there were a lot of people in the you know in the San Francisco Bay bay area who were just like one or would you do that um well good for you uh uh you never you didn't meet chelsea clinton i did not meet chelsea clinton it was very i i had a conservative stepfather growing up and it was just amazing

he was definitely one of those who like hated chelsea clinton from the moment she existed in hillary just like it was a source of like just kind of like oh you're saying some awful things about this teenager yes no i mean it was i wasn't thinking critically about things like that it was a humor it was humor at that point in time but it really was um you know the clinton's hit at such an interesting moment for um you know rage at women trying uh-huh uh-huh that that cookies line people never forgive hillary for that i mean what'd she say i'm too busy to work to make cookies i'm not baking cookies and standing at my is it this staying oh having teas and baking cookies and that was a separate quote from uh standing by my man like tammy why not like it was i mean

those were really rough and you could tell how that she thought that those were going to like appeal and be like sassy enough that people would get on her side she thought it would be the like the way elizabeth wore and i guess mitch mcconnell said it about elizabeth nevertheless she persisted yeah that'd be the line people would have shirts like i got i'm not baking drinking tea and baking cookies i mean she like she was trapped in that situation like she like i'm fascinated truly fascinated by the calculus that went on in her mind when she was at Yale Law School and was like, this is how much I could do on my own, and this is how much I could do if I become part of a team. At a point in time when women were not nationally meaningful as politicians, except as teams, really.

politicians except as teams really and i'm fascinated by sort of like the course of events that led like marty and ruth ginsburg like for a number of reasons very specific to their relationship in 1980 were able to say her really her career matters more i'm going to take a back seat and just the fact that like hill like hill that Hillary Clinton was not going to meet somebody who was going to take a backseat. And that's so rough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you graduated from there and then you went to law school. In Minnesota for no good reason. But you also did this quiz stuff, quiz bowl?

Yes. I was on Berkeley's quiz bowl bowl team but i wasn't good enough to go play anywhere else i would only play at tournaments that were at berkeley but once i got to minnesota who had a much worse much better funded team they were like we need you everywhere and so were you the best on the team i was not the best on the team this guy named mike sweetie who was an architect here in los angeles now was the best on the team but i was valuable and are you someone who do you know what your iq is no no no but you have like a strong memory for i mean comics all the time you know they'll reference you as someone who knows all the things i mean i'm insufferable truly insufferable like i i recently worked on

um uh history of the world for hulu um based on the mel brooks movie which is such a exciting thing and two of the showrunners were these guys ike and dave who had worked with me before at the mini project and we're like guy will be good at this he knows stuff but then nick kroll was the other showrunner and i had to be like these guys already know know how to deal with me being like, well, no, no, no. The thing is, I'm not going to like, well, no, no, no that much. But I am going to be like, here's how it actually works. And Nick turned out to be very nice about it. But I do have to understand that I am going to be a little insufferable about that's how it works or we have to pay attention to this.

And they were on that show so nice about it like there were a couple of of pretty um like lance crowther the man who played pootie tang and pootie tang also worked on that show and was also like let me tell you how history works and it was really good to work with him because we were equally insufferable what kind of things like would people do people? What did you catch? What did you go like? Actually, like there was one point in time when Fran Gillespie was she was pitching a sketch called incestry.com like to determine how far back you had incest in your family and at that moment i was just like oh um uh george v and nicholas ii and kaiser

wilhelm ii looked the same we have to look at photos of the fact that these guys looked the same because there was so much incest in their families and you know it like did it waste four minutes of work so that we could look at how two guys had the same beard? Yes. But I don't know how to shut myself up in that situation. And it's so cool to look at. When did incest – I always love – they never work on stage, incest jokes. I don't mean like the West Virginia.

I mean like jokes about incest because people just feel like it's a deep it's there's such a deep disgust you have to the joke has to overcome a lot of disgust yeah when did incest when did people seriously start taking no incest seriously it was it's really weird because there are both like ancient Egypt and ancient Persia. We're like, you've got to marry your sister. Like, how are we going to keep this line pure if you don't marry your sister? I love the way that you're saying it as if they're like a gay best friend. You've got to marry her.

She's got everything. You already know her mom. her she's got everything you already know her mom um like i really don't know when we like solidly got to the point of like you know if it's a first cousin the kid's bones aren't gonna work you know like uh-huh well how i mean they had to get to genetics you had to get to genetics. You had to get to Mendel and the peas. But like, yes, but also like dogs don't fuck their sisters that much, do they? Like there's also a thing of like. I'm not the quiz bowl master. Do dogs fuck their? Well, what animals do?

I guess not a lot of animals do. It says, I had a bit where I was saying, if you go to like, the idea was if you go to the zoo and you see like the chimpanzee exhibit. Yes. Everyone, maybe they're not fucking, but like everyone's sucking and rubbing and fondled like the idea was if you go to the zoo and you see like the chimpanzee exhibit yes everyone maybe they're not fucking but like everyone's sucking and rubbing and and fondled with each other and i essentially the bit was like you know clearly this is within us i don't know if it's much a bit as much as a weird observation about like something there's something there we're not that far from

them i mean didn't yorgos Lanthimos make a movie about this? I haven't seen Dogtooth, but to my knowledge, Dogtooth is about your joke. Once I had a bit, it's about like we kiss our parents and it's like we'll only go to first base with our parents. That's very funny. But we kiss and it's like kissing is a sexual thing. Yes. And we're like, ah, nothing further than that. Unless you're a baby.

Like just there's, but it never, I mean, everyone goes, is disgusted immediately. That's so funny because babies, babies are allowed to go under the bra. And if you get them young enough, they actually get to penetrate, but only in the process of coming out. I, I, one of my like go to bits for forever. Which I need to get rid of one day is. My dad and I we kiss. We kiss on the lips. Italian kiss.

And someone saying do you kiss your dad in public. I was like yeah it would be weird if I only kissed him in private. And I did a storytelling show once. I don't want my other dads to know. I did a storytelling show once where they needed to pre-approve and it was not supposed to all be comedic, but they told me to take the joke out because they said it feels like

you're making an incest joke. No one's ever called it that, but that's the reason it's so the reason it kind of tickles is something about us. I'm kissing my dad. And also the thing is, is like anytime you make an incest joke because somebody involved is presumably someone's child, the idea of consent or what consent can be there becomes problematized. Even if it's complete adults, possibly even step related on a pornographic film set.

Like at that point in time, it just becomes hot. You know, like that's where you really need it to be. film set like at that point in time it just becomes hot you know like that's where you really need it to be well i mean the the one thing about i i say that whenever those those incest porn things and it's usually step like there's usually a line between like step and then actual but after that after the porn is done there should be a three-hour drama about how their lines their lives have been irrevocably ruined well one of the fascinating things is that once you get to gay stuff, all of the dangers, well, most of the dangers of incest disappear

because there are no weird babies that could happen. And like I do, I recently worked with a pair of hot Israeli gay twins and I truly was just sort of like, why don't they have an only fans everyone wants to see this of course i remember once this is early porn days this is me downloading it on kazaa and it was like this guy sleeps with two hot twins and i remember a moment years later i was like oh those were sisters and they were having sex with each other and this guy at the same time and uh i always think

that's interesting because that's always the thing it's like well you're gonna have a fucked up baby yeah but then when you take that away you have to admit at a certain point you have to go like well it's just gross yes and that is the bottom line and i think in general it comes into conflict which i think a kind of contemporary liberal mindset of like, well, gross isn't a reason for poo-pooing. Right. No kink shaming. No kink shaming. I mean, that becomes a real challenge right there. I think even the no kink shamers would say, ah.

Well, I mean, like I personally, like you're allowed to sexualize and enjoy your own body. And if you're identical twins, any degree of saying like, Ooh, gross, I could never is just bureaucracy getting in your way. It's just rules and regulations that have been put on you. You should be able to like, be like, yeah, I love my dick. And I love my dick when it's on somebody else too. Of course. I think it should count as masturbation. Yes. I, uh, when i was early

into stand-up again it was like my stepfather came to and my stepfather has uh my step my former stepfather my mom have sisters i have half sisters and i did a joke and it was like he came to a show with like five people like disaster show and i was bombing and i said the only downside of half siblings is is only half as fun to fuck them and like to silence and like i can't imagine what he thought he didn't comment on it yeah that's not his cup of tea but i can't imagine what he thought well there's always that fascinating thing with stand-up when it comes to your family is like they are objects in your head and they're also human beings i don't like they need to understand on stage they're mostly

just objects in your head you know and it's like especially like you're i like my parents have only seen me do stand up twice and they don't like it because they think at all times i'm talking about anal sex and what bad people they are possibly at the same time but i i kind of like this detente that is like you don't pay attention and i get to do what i want sure and the couple of times that they were like pissed off about stuff that i tweeted i was like don't you understand we have an agreement that only exists in my own head that you don't get to talk about this in exchange for not caring about the work i do i i feel very similarly my mom definitely knows my stand-up well she listens to this to this podcast uh my dad does

but they never i say whatever i want and i guess i'm lucky in that i mean i talk some mad shit about my parents on stage and sometimes i feel i remember once my mom came to see me in a show and i like i like wanted her to hear this new joke which was uh the only way my mom knew how to show me love was with food uh or hostess cupcakes specifically if i got 100 on spelling test she let me have one hostess cupcake for dessert which is why even i was an adult when i do something well i get this intense craving for a better mom and i felt this like i wanted to i was kind of excited for her and it's like a mean joke yeah but i also think i and she can hear this now but but that she has a mean sense of humor right and so like i think i'm lucky in that because i certainly can see a different mom who would

start crying at that and it would be a long talk and I couldn't handle it. My mom has a mean sense of humor. She just also is incredibly vain. And so, you know, is – well, honestly, she just like doesn't like people talking about her. She's like a private person. It is weird to her that I talk about all of this. Does she know the internet? Does she understand?

No, and it's wonderful that's good because if she understood how many people see yeah if she looked at the youtube was like oh my god 160 000 no like she she cannot use the internet except to shop at jc penny and macy's and i like it that way uh-huh um it's it's very nice when i when i wrote wrote a book, I had a chapter about my dad, and my dad was dead. And it was sort of not a – it was a complex emotional chapter. I mean, probably the least funny in my book. But I wanted her to read it just so that she – because I knew that she might be mad at me on his behalf. And if it was appropriate to be mad at me on his behalf, I wanted her to do that.

Because my dad can't be mad at me anymore. And, but she was like, no, it's fine. And, like, that was, that was good. But, like, my mom yeah it like is there anything about your mom because i thought my dad had a had an open heart surgery last year and is there anything that you think you want to say artistically or about your mom that in your head you're like well when she's dead no i i told a lot of jokes about her at the beginning of my stand-up career and i do sort of sort of still have jokes about her but like i you know i'm like i actually

have i have some stuff that like i'm self-conscious about putting in material because like if she did ever see it i'm like oh this would is a a weird way for her to learn about this or whatever. But I also want to try to defeat that because I want to be able to talk about anything in my life. Yes, I agree. And so I just put that away. But, like, no, I mean, the wonderful thing about her as a person is, like, I can say anything about her and she'll just get really mad at me you know and like that would be the thing is like she would get really mad at me and then you get to deal with it we would just move past it yeah um but it's like most of the things i like the only joke i think

i have about her right now is just about her being deeply paranoid and like she knows that she's paranoid and but she thinks that i think my mom doesn't think she's paranoid she thinks she's ready i just call it paranoid uh-huh i like that i like that um well we're we're we're close to the end so let's go to our uh this has got it once we hit the dead dad by the way we every every guest sees them at dead dad uh uh do you have a this has got to stop i do have a this is good please tell me all right heterosexual male energy at award shows this is not for you this is not your space and i'm not just talking about the will smith chris rock slap fine that was at least an interesting moment i'm talking about like every year when we have to deal

with like we've picked somebody to host the oscars who who hates Oscars and has said faggot a thousand times. It's faggot Super Bowl. I'm not going to expect Lady Gaga to get to be the quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a year. So maybe your homophobic, misogynistic comic doesn't get to host the awards maybe you don't have to talk about how awards to stupid awards if you want to roll your eyes at an award show don't go to an award show like they're for us like I do have to accept that every three to four years in the middle of the super bowl they do let katie perry be there or whatever so if we need to do something in the middle of the tonys so that

straight guys feel like attended to once every three to four years that's fine but it is just a straight guy coming out being like you ever notice the lines to women's bathrooms it's so long exactly exactly what are you doing in there ladies i mean jerry seinfeld being the like halftime show at the tony's would be perfect but i just don't need you guys like coming into our space and shitting on it i don't want to ever hear somebody hosting an award show tell me how stupid award shows are again shut up who's your ideal host other than you oh i mean like billy eichner that would be a good time also i would get to write for that show i would probably make a guild income in some way um you know fucking like amy schumer was great her like her monologue uh was so fucking funny like i would like to see nikki glazer doing more of these

things like i do like a solo host i don't like sometimes i can handle a pair but i'm like you gotta you gotta take your chance and believe in your person because i want the show to have an identity the energy was weird with three hosts regina hall it was very interesting watching two stand-up comedians and then regina hall who is a very good actress and i was stunned by how good she was at selling the bits that were clearly written for her but like yeah i mean it's like we know so many people who would work really hard at that and you know sell it and be celebrating what the space is but we still don't allow women to be in charge of things like that yeah um and they always pick someone who's too high up billy eich we still don't allow women to be in charge of things like that yeah um but

and they always pick someone who's too high up billy eichner i don't know billy but he's like at a perfect level we're like that's still a big gig it's a cool exciting big audience but instead they pick someone who's like already beyond that yeah it goes i don't really care and uh who's the guy uh uh gary shandling gary shandling when he hosted it seemed like he was like this is my special i love gary shandling so much did you ever watch it's gary shandling show i watched here and there i need to watch the full thing okay but i i have seen enough i mean you were very like you were not a person when it came on but it's it's so bonkers and it's really hard because like you have to put yourself into a 1987 state of mind but um it was really good but like the wonderful thing about wanda sykes is that she always does

the work like i have worked with wanda on on history of the world she would in between scenes on the upshows she would come into the writer's room and like be pitching jokes and i i really respect that because there's people who want to protect themselves by pretending they're bigger than things and that's a great way of being bad at the job and i have written for hosts of award shows who decided that they were bigger than things so they wouldn't have to try and they were very bad at hosting those award shows go look at imdb and figure out who i'm talking about so this has got to stop. Say it one more time.

What did you call it? Heterosexual male energy at award shows. Great, great. I like to bring a good homosexual energy through a heterosexual vessel. I mean, it's one of the things that was most recommended to me about you by Twitter was Jay Jordan rhapsodizing about your nipple work. You know? Oh, thank God, thank God. Let's end on one nice

positive note. I do have a blessing. You better count your blessing. Oh, yes. I think we are all blessed by Anne Hathaway's performance in We Crashed on Hulu. Have you watched it yet? I auditioned for it. I didn't get the part. What did you audition for? I auditioned for she's in an acting class at some point and the scene partner in the class and i said a guy who overacts yes this is mine

i i believe they went with classic comedy fat guy and well okay you know that makes it easier for me if it's a totally different type yes that's great. Yes. Okay, good. I don't think they wanted your charisma there. That's what it was. No. Too in shape. Yes. She is doing full Silver Lake Witch at you, and it's so good.

And we, as a culture, decided to hate Anna Hathaway for a while for trying too hard. The only moment... Listen, I agree. Yes. I remember the moment when she got i believe it was a golden globe and said it's really happening yes and for me i said okay that's an inside thought if it was even true and we all knew you were gonna win you were amazingly missed yes and there was something about that moment that in inside me i said okay i agree with you it was it

was it was she's astoundingly talented. She's performery. Nobody's saying she's not performery. Also, the thing I love best, which I didn't identify, Lewis Vertel identified, is that if you ever ask Meryl Streep about Anne Hathaway, she will tell you how much she loves Emily Blunt. She will just reply. Hilarious. But Anne Hathaway is so fucking good in we crashed like he's an astounding actor she's an astounding actor and to have somebody do something because they're like

you watch drag race right uh here and there okay so there are those performances like house of gucci where most people were doing snatch game and like she could be doing snatch game but she's not she's like acting but giving you the the biggest take and the biggest swing and it's so good um all right well i will watch we crash just for her uh does he do a good job of of matching her at all i mean he's jared leto so i mean he's giving you wonderful and broad, but compared to House of Gucci, it seems so contained and plugged up. So, is there anything, this is coming out April 12th, is there anything you'd like to plug as we head out? If you are in the city of Los Angeles, I am doing an hour as part of Netflix is a Joke at Dynasty Typewriter. And if you're in Austin,

I will be at moon tower, April 14th through whenever I leave. Uh, are you going to moon tower? No, I'm headlining, uh, uh,

my plug April 14th through 16th comedy vaults in Batavia. It's near Chicago. Uh, but who knows? Maybe moon tower will reach out and I will, I will drop that gig in a heartbeat, but I'm excited to be there for now. And a weekend after that, April 22nd, 23rd, I'm at Wise Guys Comedy Club in Jordan's Landing, Utah, first time.

And then the weekend after that, Looney Bin, Oklahoma City. But, Guy, thank you for being here. I'm so glad. I mean, I'm such a fan of your work on Twitter and everything else. What a lovely way of properly meeting you. And I like to end with something negative or cynical. Anything, anything, a sad note. Oh, yesterday I saw a possum in my backyard.

And so now I constantly have to be worried that somewhere in my house inside, there might be like a possum in like underneath the floor or something. This is the downside. One, two, three. Downside. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi.